Alaska's delegation slams Obama's ACA fix

Posted: November 15, 2013 - 1:09am

JUNEAU EMPIRE

President Barack Obama announced a fix to the Affordable Care Act that would allow insurers to extend by one year health insurance policies that don’t comply with the act. The fix comes after five million people reported their current policies had been canceled.

Obama announced the fix Thursday.

“We’re going to do everything we can to help the Americans who’ve received these cancellation notices,” Obama said. “But there are also 40 million Americans who don’t have health insurance. And I am not going to walk away from 40 million people who have the chance to get health insurance for the first time.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Obama’s extension didn’t resolve any other issues with the law.

“The President’s promise was pretty simple — if you like your health care plan, you can keep it. Period,” Murkowski said in a statement. “Now, in response to a spectacular failure of a rollout of the exchange and the outrage of millions of Americans, he has recalibrated. Now you can keep your health care at least for the next year if your provider will reissue it.”

Rep. Don young called Obama’s fix an attempt at “saving face.”

“As much as I dislike this overbearing and reckless health care law, Alaskans deserve a level of certainty and clarity when dealing with it,” Young said in a statement. “The President’s announcement today is just another step to hide the critical flaws of the law and silence the millions of Americans who have already received cancellation notices to their existing health care policies.”

Both Young and Murkowski have introduced legislation that would allow people to keep their current health care plans regardless of whether it complies with the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Mark Begich said on the television news show Fox and Friends that he supports the legislation.

“I am disappointed in how this has been implemented and rolled out. There have been too many people making decisions who weren’t coordinating with each other and not enough focus on how to make this system work,” Begich said. “At the end of the day we need happy customers and people should be satisfied with their health plans which is why I’m supporting a fix to law which will allow folks to keep their insurance if they like it.”